Previous Year's spare parts

[Gary Dillard]

Here's a not-so-hypothetical question:

S.P.A.M. went with the Nothing-But-Dewalt gearboxes for the drive train again this year (as we did last year). Last year we built (modified per Joe Johnson's white paper) 4 sets for the robot and 4 sets as spares. We never needed the spares. This year we again built 4 sets plus 4 sets as spares. I anticipate that at the end of the season we will have all 8 sets of spares sitting on the shelf, unused, that we cannot use for any future competition since they were built in a previous year. This is different from purchased spares (which we can use in other years) since we actually performed fabrication on them.

Could we sell, trade or donate them to another team next year? Would that team be allowed to use them? I'd say by the letter of the law maybe, but certainly by the intent yes if they bookkeep the allowable cost since the raw parts are readily available to any team. It doesn't give anyone an unfair advantage. What do you think?

[Greg Needel]

Gary,
I understand you logic but i think the answer would be that it is not legal. While Spam's intent is GP i am looking at this from an overall FIRST perspective. Lets say i prototype a new super transmission in the off season and test it so that it works perfectly. Now i am not allowed to use it because it wasn't build during the season but we are mentoring a rookie team and now find it legal to give our off season transmission to them, thus giving them an advantage of a tested transmission that they didn't have to build.

So now that that gets out a few teams get together and build transmissions in the off season and just trade each other for them the day after kickoff. How would this be fair.

In a perfect world where everyone followed the rules to the letter and had good intentions like you do i would say it is fine but unfortunately i can see that if teams start this trend it will only go south fast.


Greg

[Richard Wallace]

VENDOR – A legitimate business source for COTS items that, as a minimum, satisfies the following criteria:
• The VENDOR must have a Federal Tax Identification number.
o The Federal Tax Identification number establishes the VENDOR as a legal business entity with the IRS, and validates their status as a legitimate business.
• The VENDOR must be normally able to ship any general (i.e., non-FIRST unique) product within five business days of receiving a valid purchase request. It is recognized that certain unusual circumstances, such as 1,000 FIRST teams all ordering the same part at once from the same VENDOR, may cause atypical delays in shipping due to backorders for even the largest VENDORS. Such delays due to higher than-normal order rates are excused.
o The FIRST Robotics Competition build season is only six weeks long, so the VENDOR must be able to get their product, particularly FIRST unique items, to a team in a timely manner.
• The business should maintain sufficient stock or production capability to fill teams orders within a reasonable period during the build season (<1 week). Note that this criterion may not apply to custom built items from a source that is both a VENDOR and a fabricator. For example, a VENDOR may sell flexible belting that the team wishes to procure to use as treads on their drive system. The VENDOR cuts the belting to a custom length from standard shelf stock that is typically available, welds it into a loop to make a tread, and ships it to a team. The fabrication of the tread takes the VENDOR two weeks. This would be considered a FABRICATED ITEM, and the two weeks ship time is acceptable. Alternately, the team may decide to fabricate the treads themselves. To satisfy this criterion, the VENDOR would just have to ship a length of belting from shelf stock (i.e. a COTS item) to the team within five business days and leave the welding of the cuts to the team.
• The VENDOR makes their products available to all FIRST Robotics Competition teams.
• VENDORS must not limit supply or make a product available to just a limited number of FIRST Robotics Competition teams.
• Ideally, chosen VENDORS should have national distributors.
o Example distributors include Home Depot, Lowes, MSC, Radio Shack, and McMaster-Carr. FIRST competition events are not usually near home. When parts fail, local access to replacements is often critical.

FIRST desires to permit teams to have the broadest choice of legitimate sources possible, and to obtain COTS items from the sources that provide them with the best prices and level of service available. The intent of this definition it to be as inclusive as possible to permit access to all legitimate sources, while preventing ad hoc organizations from providing special-purpose products to a limited subset of teams in an attempt to circumvent the cost accounting rules.I read the definition of a VENDOR as precluding the situation suggested above, in which team A would sell unused spare parts to team B. This would be unfair because team A may not limit supply or make a product available to just a limited number of FRC teams.

[Alan Anderson]

The rules next year might change, but they probably won't. Since 1) you modified them and 2) you don't fit the definition of a vendor, those spares are not going to be usable on a competition-legal robot other than the one they were intended for.

The most reasonable course I see is to use them on a non-competition project, or give/trade/sell them to another team for such use.